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Why doesn’t the Nobel laureate eat breakfast anymore? Time Restricted Eating – Circadian Rhythm & our built-in clock

As a follow-up to the previous posts about the golden combination for a long rich life –  Healthy Food & Exercise – Here comes a post that might surprise you a bit? Namely the importance of WHEN of the day we eat. More and more research indicates that there are great health benefits to a food intake that is concentrated for a shorter time in the light part of the day than is usual in Western food cultures. By eating during a slightly shorter eating window than normal, te x 8-12 hours during the day instead of what many people normally do with up to 15 hour eating windows, great health benefits can be gained. Without changing your caloric intake, you can obtain great metabolic benefits, faster recovery and well-being for the body’s internal organs along with better hormone levels, more muscle less fat. Animal experiments also show a clearly longer lifespan.

The three American scientists Hall, Rosbash & Young received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine for the research on Circadian Rhythm, our internal clock that all living beings on our earth and even plants have built-in. Professor Michael Rosbash answers a question about how he himself eats. “I eat according to the 16/8 model and skip breakfast and concentrate my food intake on lunch and dinner, all within 8 hours, which gives the body 16 hours of rest. It is natural for us to eat and fast in cycles. Our ancestors did not snack all the time. Our internal clocks are very robust and they tell us when it’s time to eat and sleep, for example the body’s purification system the liver needs time to rest, says Rosbash”. You will gain weight if you are not aware of what time of day you eat. When you eat is probably as important as the amount of calories you eat, says Rosbash’s Nobel Prize colleague Michael Young.

I myself listened to the podcast (link below) last fall and after that I started practicing 16/8 just like Professor Rosbash, worse influence you can have I think. I have been doing it on weekdays since 3 months and experience a good general effect with good energy for training, a strong feeling and health. It might sound a bit sacrificial. It is not. I only have breakfast on weekdays before I cycle to work, to save some time. It is therefore not about eating less or restrictively, but only for a slightly shorter time of day. Detailed studies (listen to the podcast below) show that it is significantly easier to maintain energy balance, weight and better organ health with Time Restricted Eating.